Quote:Right now, 500 light years away from Earth, there's a planet that looks a lot like our own. It is bathed in dim orangeish light, which at high noon is only as bright as the golden hour before sunset back home.

NASA scientists are calling the planet Kepler-186f, and it's unlike anything they've found. The big news: Kepler-186f is the closest relative to the Earth that researchers have discovered.

It's the first Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone of another star—the sweet spot between too-hot Mercury-like planets and too-cold Neptunes— and it is likely to give scientists their first real opportunity to seek life elsewhere in the universe. "It's no longer in the realm of science fiction," said Elisa Quintana, a researcher at the SETI Institute.

Apparently it's the closest finding so far to an Earth like world. It's in the Goldilocks zone of its star and isn't much larger than Earth. Cool find.